According to CBC’s Elliotte Friedman, the Tampa Bay Lightning are looking to move veteran left winger Ryan Malone; if they can’t, they will likely choose to buy him out of his contract.

Here’s the comment, from Friedman’s 30 Thoughts column:

I'm hearing Yzerman is trying to trade Ryan Malone. Tampa Bay would prefer to avoid a buyout payout and the Lightning are offering a draft pick as an enticement. Malone has a no-move clause in his contract until July 1, which gives him some control of the situation. It is a limited no-trade after then.

Malone missed 24 games last season with a variety of ailments, scoring just six goals and two assists in the 24 games he did play. He averaged just over 20 goals per season in the four years preceding 2013 despite missing time each year. He has one year remaining on his contract, a deal with two years remaining at a $4.5 million cap hit and only a combined total of $5 million over both season in actual salary.

Scouting Report

Here (in part) is McKeen’s Hockey writing on Malone in their 2012-13 Yearbook:

[B]ig, tough forward blessed with soft hands, strong arms, and deceptive quickness .. propelled by a smooth comfortable stride that is long and powerful .. not the most intuitive player – and still suffers lapses in energy and focus .. puts out a good effort most nights now however .. determined and courageous driving to the net and creating space for linemates .. deployed successfully as a net presence on the power play .. excels making plays in traffic and along the boards and is adept at tips and deflections, aided by solid body control .. generates impressive shooting velocity from a minimal windup .. provides a strategic size and power component to Tampa’s mix .. always best to budget for downtime given his brash approach.

The latter line is one of the primary concerns with respect to Malone; the 33 year old has missed just over one-quarter of Tampa Bay’s games over the last four seasons.

A Statistical Lens

What I'd like to do is look at a number of performance-related statistics. I'm going to look, year by year, at four categories, which are as follow:

CorsiRel. "Corsi" is shorthand for shot attempts plus/minus - all the shots, missed shots, and blocked shots that a player was on the ice for 5-on-5 over an average one-hour period. The "Rel" part stands for relative - what we're doing there is adjusting for team strength.

5-on-5 Points/60. Just like regular points, only adjusted for an average hour of ice-time.

ZoneStarts. Taking offensive zone and defensive zone faceoffs, and expressing them as a percentage. If a player was on the ice for 70 offensive zone faceoffs and 30 defensive zone faceoffs, he would have a 70% offensive zone start, and we'd expect him to do better than a player with 30 offensive zone and 70 defensive zone faceoffs (30% zone start).

Quality of Competition rank. The player's rank among active forwards on his team in Behind the Net's Quality of Competition (we're using the Corsi-based one, though the site also offers a goal-based one and the difference between the two is small). This gives us an idea of the kind of opponents Malone typically played against.

Season

Team

CorsiRel

5v5 Points/60

ZoneStart

QC Rank.

2007-08

Pittsburgh

6.4

1.94

51.1

11th

2008-09

Tampa Bay

10.9

2.36

53.0

10th

2009-10

Tampa Bay

-1.6

1.96

51.6

5th

2010-11

Tampa Bay

8.0

1.80

53.0

12th

2011-12

Tampa Bay

-0.4

1.90

48.7

5th

2012-13

Tampa Bay

-6.3

1.22

50.5

2nd

Aside from this most recent season, we get an interesting picture of Malone. Obviously, he’s a capable scorer – a good scoring line option will manage 2.00 points per hour 5-on-5, and Malone is generally just a hair below that. The interesting thing is that he only has really excelled in his NHL career in years where he hasn’t played the tough minutes – we see three seasons where his team really out-shot the opposition with him on the ice, and in all three cases he wasn’t playing against power. When he played second-tier opposition, his team was more likely to hover around the break-even mark in terms of shot attempts for and against.

Not listed here, but also of interest: Malone has been a significant power play performer on the team’s he has played for and can reasonably be seen as a value-added player with the man advantage. He’s also capable of filling in on the penalty kill, though it’s been a few years since he played regular minutes.

The Cost

The cost of Malone isn’t really in the acquisition – Tampa Bay sounds willing to sweeten the deal, after all. It’s two more years at a cap hit of $4.5 million for a guy closing in on 34 with an ugly history of injury and a style that will continue putting him in harm’s way.

If he rebounds, Ryan Malone is an awfully useful player; if he doesn’t, that’s a hard contract to take on.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

Any way you look at TB and Malone its simply a contract they want off the books. The team taking him is doing them a favour. Albeit on a whim that maybe he can be worth half his cap hit the next two seasons. They would need to sweeten the deal. Swap our 2nd(56th) rounder for their 2nd rounder(33rd) and I would make the deal... I dont see this happening however.

Malone is exactly the type of player MacT is looking to avoid.. he said it so himself. No veterans on their last legs, none. Unless named Ryan Smyth.

If Eakins properly handles the roster he is given, and keeps Smyth on the LW where he should never of left.. I think he still has game to give. Last season was a joke, 4th line center?!?!? WTF! I know Tambi did absolutely nothing.. But everyone could clearly see playing 4th line center was killing Smyth, but he did it.. He could have a bit of a resurgent year and help gap the transition, if we just let him breathe, play, and not weight him down on his last hoorah!

Vinny is my favorite non oiler in the NHL. I would have a Wayne-esque Squeegasm if MacT pulled this off!!! Now I'm cursing myself for going out to the mountains camping this weekend where I won't have any cell service.... Oh wait, no I'm not ;)

Hemsky's game type.. He could and probably will hit 70pts again if he stays healthy wherever he ends up.. The only reason Hemsky should be leaving.. is if he asked to.. Otherwise we lose the Hemsky trade 100 times out of 100.

Hemsky's game type.. He could and probably will hit 70pts again if he stays healthy wherever he ends up.. The only reason Hemsky should be leaving.. is if he asked to.. Otherwise we lose the Hemsky trade 100 times out of 100.

What an interesting time in the NHL. Buyout period and free agent period overlap, and for the first time we are seeing multiple players bought out, and some real talent is coming available.

What salary does a player ask for after being bought out?

One has to make the argument that to be bought out, a player's salary must have been significantly higher than his value for a team to buy him out. So what then would we assume he could reasonably bargain for? 60%? 80% of the first contract?

Will the bought out players be more likely to play for less than market value having just made a huge lump of cash.

Will there be bought out players paid over-value just because it's a UFA deal?

I think they puh in an offer like.any team saying we're sending a message, but Vinny stays out east. Gotta think he can still.command 5 mil x 5, and.would make a smoking 2nd line center on most teams I would think Detroit, Washington, heck Florida.could be front runners and looking for a second line center like him. He's not going.to Canada and especially not TO or Montreal.

Man, these compliance buyouts are really heating up. So much for the DSF theory that no one is going to be bought out. Lecavalier for our second line centre is exactly what the Oilers need. Skill, veteran leadership, the guy can still be a superstar, especially on this team.

I imagine the Oilers investigate signing Lecavalier and get a 'thanks, but not thanks' reply - they aren't a contender, they aren't out East, and Lecavalier is going to have a ton of options. Too bad, because at the right price point he'd be a good fit behind Nugent-Hopkins.

It's time to get in the playoff picture game and add a veteran in the 7-9M contract range , like all the others major competition are doing or have done - lets not cheap out and just overpay mid line personnel . A Lecavalier , Weber , even smaller hits like Iginla and Luongo would do well here .

If......Lecavalier goes to Montreal does that mean Galchenyuk could be moved for the right price?
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You sir, win the internet today, and it's only 11 am. Here's to hoping the Habs go into win now mode.

maybe i missed something during the playoffs but I didnt notice Bolland all that much. Other then a 2011 he has been a bit of a non issue. Id keep Gags and give it a chance to see what he can do in the playoffs. Still would slide him to wing if we can get a 2c though.